PoV: Samuel
The legendaries on this list are correct, but I feel like there was something that Anya purposefully left out. Her hinting about my past is also quite peculiar, she claims to not have time traveled either.
She definitely is hiding something, The Espeon on the other hand... Faesol was her name? She seems more genuine and acts more like a typical Pokémon. Even though I have not been with her that much, I can say that she is a good Pokémon, maybe a bit smaller than normal.
I look outside from the window to the backyard, I see Anya cheerily chatting with Faesol about something and the Espeon in question jumps up and down excited.
Continuing to look outside, I thought that I should get some money on hand to ask her some questions. She said that she would be selling information right?
I opened the backyard door, went next to Anya, her smile stiffened and I said "I'll be going outside, do what you want in the meantime" and walked back inside, picking up my bag and leaving the house. She waved me goodbye.
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Outside I strolled around the town, trying to take my mind of off Anya. I visited a cafe and sat down, ordered a sandwich and a coffee from the waitress. Waiting for my food to arrive my thoughts were interrupted by a hooded figure who approached me.
"Greetings Samuel, may I join you?" the man said.
"Do I know you?" I asked him
"No, you do not know me" he shook his head and sat down opposite side of the table.
"Then how can I help you?" I asked him, I was obviously intrigued
"We... Have a mutual friend" he said
"friends, yes friends, two of them I think." He corrected while looking a bit confused.
"Maybe if you gave me names? Those usually help" I said
"One of them you have met years ago in the forest"
"The Ce-" I said in surprise but was cut off
"Stop" He said while looking around.
"Whose the other 'friend' then?" I asked
"You will figure it out soon enough" He said while standing up
"What was it you want me to do?"
"There" the man said while pointing outside the window, I followed his finger and saw nothing.
"I don't see anything?" I asked while turning my head back to him. He was gone, disappeared without a trace.
I asked the waitress about the mysterious man, but she said that there wasn't anyone with those descriptions inside the cafe. That was odd.
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Pov: ???
Dealing with humans is difficult, what was I thinking trying to contact him... I think I said too much too... How stupid of me, another failure yet again.
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Pov: Standard
Anya waved her goodbye to Samuel who left, she turned towards Faesol.
"Alright Feef, what do you want to do?" she asked
"Umm, I have many things I want to do!" was her reply
"Like? Give me something to work with" Anya insisted
"I want to learn how to use my psychic abilities! or learn to read! or or..."
"Okay, I can work with that. I am not sure how much I can help with the psychic thing as I have no deeper understanding what it does though or Pokémon moves in general" Anya said and Faesol deflated
"However, I can still give you my opinions and help and as long as normal physics are working correctly I can help you with understanding them."
"I did not understand half of the things you just said, But I am happy that you will try to help at least"
"Which one do you want to start with?"
"Reading, I think reading is cool!"
"Alright" Anya said while chuckling at the Espeon's over enthusiasm
She went to get a book from the junk pile sitting near the backyard entrance, the book she managed to excavate from the boxes was a simple travel booklet meant for young trainers. It was old and dusty as Anya wiped the covers, it would have to do for a teaching materials.
Next she went to the typewriter and typed each of the letters on the keyboard in an alphabetical order from A to Z, with some space between each letter.
She took the paper and sat on the sofa, she gestured Faesol to join her.
"This here is the Latin alphabet that I use from where I am from" she showed her the paper with all the typed letters. Faesol's face hardened as she remembered that Anya was from another world entirely, which soon became a comfortable smile and she leaned casually at Anya's side, comforting Anya with her own presence.
"And this here uses the local Unown Alphabet" She quickly showed her the pages from the booklet. None the wiser to Faesol's sneaky attempt at contact.
Faesol looked through the pages and studied intently at the paper Anya had shown her.
"These look completely different?" she asked a question
"No, not really. They are actually quite similar in their basic looks. But what happened with Persimon the Persian we met in Viridian, She was unable to recognize the Unown letters but could recognize the Latin ones without a problem."
"Do you think all of these letters look different from each other?"
"They are all squiglies? None of them seem like the other?"
"Even these four?" She pointed at the word 'LOOK' in the first page.
"Yes? Why?"
"Because these two letters are identical as the word 'look' is spelled as L, O, O and K. Which means the letters in the middle of the word should be same. If they still look the same, then there is something else going on."
Faesol intensively studied the word Anya had pointed out, the two letters in the middle. The letters didn't look the same at all, she could at the very least notice some similarities with the two letters.
"They share some similarities, but otherwise they look different..."
"I see..." Anya said while in deep thought. She was thinking about the nature of Unown and their lore in Pokémon. She remembered that the Unowns were mystical beings that could cause miracles to happen, like from the movie a girls father was brought back as an Entei or something along the line, she couldn't remember the whole thing it had been years when she had seen the movie.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
"I think I got it, I think the nature of the Unown pokemon has some effects on the words written in Unown script." She shared her conclusion.
Faesol nodded, even though she had no idea what any of that meant.
"It would explain why you could recognize the Latin alphabet and not the Unown alphabet"
"I see? So I cannot learn how to read?"
Anya pondered how to answer Faesol's question, she didn't want to disappoint her.
"No, I think you are capable of learning to read the Unown script. It just might take a lot longer than I initially estimated. There are also additional methods to learn but those will have to wait until you get a lot better at being psychic"
"How so?"
"Well, I told you before. Persimon had managed to kind of learn a single letter in a day"
"Kind of?"
"Yeah, she managed to recognize the letter A, like this one here, on a specific spot on the cafe's menu. She was distraught at the revelation, I promised to visit her soon to check up on her progress. Next time I would have real teaching material with me, like this paper here"
"You really like this kind of stuff don't you?" Said Faesol, Anya blinked few times.
"Huh, you seem to be right, it seems like I enjoy teaching others?"
"Anyways, let's continue"
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Late into the evening, Samuel came back, he entered the living room and saw Anya lying on the floor, using a pillow to prop her upper body a bit higher. Next to her was Faesol who was sitting and pawing the booklet that Samuel had recognized to be his trainer's guide.
He chuckled, "Seems like you guys are working hard"
Anya's attention was taken by Faesol asking her a question and she only glanced at Samuel.
Around them both were few sheets of paper in which Anya had typed some sentences from the trainer's guide. Samuel went to the kitchen and started preparing food.
"I think, it is a good time to stop for today"
"But, but, I haven't learned anything yet"
"I know, but you did great to try to memorize the alphabets already and we haven't eaten anything since morning"
Anya then rose up, dusted her dress and went to the typewriter, she typed a sentence on the paper and delivered it to Samuel.
'WE HAVE DISCOVERED THAT THE UNOWN SCRIPT MESSES WITH THE POKEMON MIND'
'FAESOL COULD EASILY READ THE OTHER ALPHABET AND HAD NO TROUBLE IN'
'RECOGNISING THE LETTERS FROM EACH OTHER'
'ON THE OTHER HAND, THE UNOWN SCRIPT SEEMS LIKE SQUIGLY LETTERS TO HER'
'RIGHT NOW I AM TRYING TO MAKE HER IDENTIFY THE LETTERS FROM THE BOOK'
'THE PROGRESS SEEMS SLOW BUT, SHE IS A BIT FASTER THAN PERSIMON FROM'
'THE CAFE. TRANSLATING THE UNOWN TO MY ALPHABET SEEMS TO HELP HER'
'IN UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SPOKEN AN WRITTEN LANGUAGE'
Samuel looked at the offered paper and read through it a few times just to see if he did in fact read it correctly. He did, his surprise to the Unown script itself being detrimental to a Pokémon's ability to read was paramount. It is not like the script was originally created by humans as a language that no Pokémon could read, at least without spending a long time learning it. Or was it? thought Samuel.
There still was one question that Samuel did not get an answer from that paper. How did Anya learn to read the Unown script? If it was so hard to learn as a Pokémon? He remembered the odd dude who came to talk to him at the cafe earlier today. Is he connected to all of this? Is Faesol or Anya the other friend we have in common?
So many questions and nowhere to get the answers from, 'maybe Anya could help?' Samuel thought 'She has proven that she knows a lot about legendary Pokémon'
Eating together at the same table, where an Espeon was sitting on the table, eating from her plate, a Leavanny was sitting sideways on a chair using her cutters to pierce and cut the food she ate elegantly and a human, who was casually using a knife and a fork like it was everyday occurrence.
If someone would see this situation they would cry in outrage, as during this time the Pokémon were not considered as a 'clean' pet who were allowed to eat at the table along with humans. They ate from the bowls on the floor in normal households.
All of them were tired, Faesol being the most mentally exhausted, Anya's arms were sore from all the typing she had done and Samuel just not getting enough sleep last night.
Faesol was the first one to leave, Anya told her to at least was her face before if she were to go to her bed, she had just changed the sheets. Faesol nodded tiredly.
That left Anya and Samuel sitting next to each other. The air was awkward as neither or them spoke a word. Well the other couldn't but that is beyond the point. Samuel opened his mouth in the end.
"Hey. I am sorry Anya, for everything I said this morning" Anya looked at Samuel, her red eyes unblinking and staring straight into Samuel's brown ones. Samuel couldn't look away, he didn't want to, he was supposed to be the 'trainer' a freaking champion. How could a person who mistreats his Pokémon be a champion the face of all trainers, the mascot of the whole Pokémon league, scratch that, the mascot of the whole Pokémon world.
He stared back at Anya's eyes his mind wandering inside the red jewels of Anya. Anya let out a sigh, she released the eye contact and Samuel was surprised to be let out.
"Lea-va-nny" Anya chirped, Samuel not knowing what it meant, the intention lost to him.
She stood up and took a few steps closer to Samuel.
She was now right in front of him, her eyes almost closed, she carefully put each of her cutters to Samuel's shoulders. Samuel had frozen, the sharp cutters were too close to his neck and face, his mind jumping to different conclusions and outcomes. 'How to deal with this situation?'
They stood there for a while, Anya opened her mouth again "Lea-va-nny, vA NY vA, lea lea" and she pulled him closer while gently sliding her cutters along his back.
Samuel's mind raced, what kind of situation is this? What is she trying to do? Maybe?
His thoughts were stopped as Anya had wrapped Samuel into a gentle caress laying his head on her chest and placing her own head on top of Samuel's. Anya had no idea what she was doing as she was just following her instincts. Good thing there was no one to see her. She continued gently rubbing Samuel's back while offering him, her closeness.
Anya had tried to make sense of her current actions but she could only say that they were part of Leavanny's natural behavior, the core instinct.
Samuel didn't fare any better, his mind had calmed as he laid in Anya's embrace. It really has been too long when he had any real closeness, the one night stands every now and then didn't really count as they were more akin to releasing pent up lust.
This however was the gentle closeness of another person. Her cold skin and silk sheets covering him wasn't the most pleasant feeling he had felt but the pure closeness he felt from her was enough to ignore anything else.
The hug ended after Anya had calmed herself enough and Samuel was left wanting for more, Anya held Samuel by her shoulders and smiled gently at him. Showing that she has forgiven him and he should not berate himself anymore. She chirped "Vanny" apologetically, a hint of embarrassment showing on her eyes.
Anya detached and went quickly upstairs, leaving Samuel alone in the first floor still confused about what had just happened.
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Upstairs Faesol had just left the bathroom, having washed her face in the sink and doing her best to dry it on the towel that was hanging on a hook. She met Anya on the walkway. "Hey, I washed my face!" She announced happily.
"That is... great?" Anya said distracted, before disappearing into the bathroom herself.
"Odd? What happened after I left?" Faesol said stumped and went to bed. Anya following her in a few minutes and Samuel was doing his nightly rituals of brushing teeth and showering before going to bed.